Aug 31, 2004

Around the Horn

by Cliopatria

Some interesting things from around the blog-o-sphere:

Lusophonic blogger Nuno Guerreiro of Rua da Judiaria has an excellent post explaining Jewish theological views on abortion (I usually explain to people that abortion has the same gravitas as amputating an arm.) Nuno stresses that abortion is mandated by Jewish law (halacha) in some cases. Here is the Googlized translation.

Take a look at the survey of US Dialects. It looks at the different things Americans say and how they pronounce them. I had fun looking at those things that are clearly"New Englandisms"--things like tag sales and cabinets. Kudos to those who figure out where people say"whipping sh!tties".(Reference at Far Outliers.)

Geitner Simmons of Regions of Mind has two posts on controversial depictions of African Americans. They deal with Griffith's Birth of the Nation and Porgy and Bess. The first was protested by NAACP for its heroic depiction of the Klu Klux Klan (James Card, in Seductive Cinema, quotes a rabbi who felt ashamed for having cheered on the Clansmen.) The second was protested because it"glorified the worst in black folk and urban street culture."

Writer Shane Maloney gave an interesting speech to the students of Scotch College. Here is one gem:"It is not your fault, after all, that your families decided to institutionalise you." (Reference at Barista.)

More Comments:

Jonathan Dresner - 9/1/2004

I was actually surprised at how easy the translation was to read, and how frequently the untranslated words were actually cognates and mostly comprehensible to someone like myself with two years of HS latin and a semester of "gotta pass the Departmental proficiency exam" grad school French.

I did run into a little more trouble when I tried to read the Holocaust poetry Rua di Judaria posted in conjunction with the ongoing Darfur atrocities, but the ideas came across strongly enough that I'm not going to complain about the free service.....

Nathanael D. Robinson - 9/1/2004

Google is horrible for translation, but it does help to make non-English literature accessible. However, you still need to know something of the other language in order to understand the post. Nonetheless, there are some active Lusophonic bloggers who are writing some great stuff--more than there are in French and German.

Sorry I cannot provide my own translation--I file Portuguese under one of my passive languages (looks kinda like French, use dictionary frequently, once ordered salty fish in Lisbon).

Jonathan Dresner - 9/1/2004

I haven't finished absorbing the Rua da Judiaria post yet, but I do love the way Google translated the Portuguese for "Reform" Judaism as "remodelled"....